[Bug 1206878] [NEW] [SRU] Configuration should be purged only in nginx-common

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

You have been subscribed to a public bug by Brian Murray (brian-murray):

[Impact]

 * When purging nginx-light, nginx-full, or nginx-naxsi with apt-get
remove --purge (or similar), the /etc/nginx/ folder and all
configurations are removed.

 * nginx-common should be the package that, when purged, will remove the
configuration data as well as the program.

 * Removal of a user's configuration when the -common package is not
removed is a severe issue, and when Thomas Ward consulted with Clint
Byrum on bug importance, this was determined to be a "Critical" bug as
user configuration removals should not be happening in this case.

[Test Cases]

Make sure to run all three test cases. The third one, in particular, was
not fixed with the others at the same time in Debian, and relies on a
separate commit. --rbasak

[Test Case 1]

 * Produced by purging nginx-full, nginx-light, or nginx-naxsi.

 * By running a purge of nginx-full or nginx-light or nginx-naxsi
without removing nginx-common, the system should not be removing a
user's configuration files for nginx.  Only if nginx-common is removed
should the system

[Test Case 2 (added by rbasak)]
1. apt-get install nginx
2. dpkg -P nginx nginx-full
3. apt-get install nginx

Expected results: nginx-full installed again and functional, with the daemon running.
Actual results: nginx-full postinst failure due to missing /etc/nginx directory causing daemon start failure.

[Test Case 3 (added by rbasak)]
1. apt-get install nginx-extras
2. dpkg -P nginx-extras
3. apt-get install nginx-extras

Expected results: nginx-extras installed again and functional, with the daemon running.
Actual results: nginx-extras postinst failure due to missing /etc/nginx directory causing daemon start failure.

[Regression Potential]

 * Minimal - The patch from Debian has been in the NGINX packages since
1.2.1 and is also included in Quantal and later with no regressions.

Added by rbasak:

Consider the upgrade path carefully. For example: if the nginx-common
binary package is held back, and other binaries are upgraded with this
SRU, then it's possible that purging functionality will disappear and
the old nginx-common binary package could then be purged and /etc/nginx
would not be cleaned up. I [rbasak] don't think this case is worth
considering in an SRU though, since at worse it'll leave /etc/nginx
behind in a very unusual case, which shouldn't have any other
repercussions anyway.

Only postinsts are changed here. The nginx-{full,light,naxsi} postrms
are removed, since they didn't have any other functionality. The purge
functionality is wholesale added to nginx-common's postrm. So I expect
that any regressions will affect maintainer scripts only, not in
functionality of the package once configured and installed. If something
does go wrong, it will be with users' configurations being affected, but
should only happen when they purge a package, which is unlikely in
production.

Finally, make sure to check nginx-extras separately, as this was missed
in Debian the first time round.

[Other Info]

 * Patch to fix this issue (to be attached here shortly) originated from
Debian.

 * Debdiffs to be attached after build-tests are completed.

------

Original Description:

nginx in ubuntu has a very violently bug when purging one of the packages
nginx-full, nginx-light or nginx-naxsi while moving from light to full or other
ways. The packages -light, -full and -naxsi will remove /etc/nginx,
/var/log/nginx and /var/lib/nginx completely leaving the system broken. The
directories are not owned by this respective packages at all then owned by
nginx-common. So after such a transition the whole nginx installation is broken
and one has to also first to purge nginx-common and reinstalling it.

Unneeded to say that all own site configurations has been deleted too.

This is a massive violation of debian policy. However, debian had never has
this bug in one of there stable distributions, so this bug only affects ubuntu
(12.04 LTS was checked by me)

** Affects: nginx (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Critical
         Status: Fix Released

** Affects: nginx (Ubuntu Precise)
     Importance: Critical
         Status: Triaged

** Affects: nginx (Debian)
     Importance: Unknown
         Status: Fix Released

-- 
[SRU] Configuration should be purged only in nginx-common
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1206878
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